


excise myself from your lost and loving heart

by anonymousAlchemist



Series: Lucretia Cycle [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, a character study in some ways, in which lucretia makes shit decisions and loves her friends, that good good update fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11354931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist
Summary: Lucretia's problem was never a lack of caring.Lucretia has been thinking a lot about about memory, lately. About a hundred years of searching and fighting. About her family whom she loves and the easy warmth of their presence. She has been thinking about war, and of Cordelia razed to glass, and of the peppermint town, and of the islands instantly destroyed from a sudden disastrous storm.





	excise myself from your lost and loving heart

**Author's Note:**

> griffin mcelboy continues to kill me. hot n dirty straight off the presses - will probs edit later when less Distraught(tm)

  
Lucretia has been thinking a lot about about memory, lately. About a hundred years of searching and fighting. About her family whom she loves and the easy warmth of their presence. She has been thinking about war, and of Cordelia razed to glass, and of the peppermint town, and of the islands instantly destroyed from a sudden disastrous storm. There are armies that gather outside Neverwinter, the wizards and sorcerers and kings who use the relics as weapons of mass destruction.

That's what they've done, really. Created weapons of mass destruction. They're the cause of all the conflict on this planet. They were supposed to save all the worlds.

She supposes that they have, in some ways. Her lingering bitterness over Lup's plan being chosen over hers has been snuffed out. It's hard to feel bad when she's seen the effects of Lup and Barry's plan, and how gutted Lup felt about the whole thing before she disappeared.

Lucretia worries about Lup. Not as much as Barry and Taako do, but Lup's like a sister to her, no matter how much they sometimes disagree.

Lucretia has been thinking about the way Merle is too cheerful and Taako too bitter and Magnus uncertain and Davenport conflicted and Barry searching desperately for Lup who is no longer here.

What time has done to all of them? Lucretia thinks about the way that none of them have left the ship yet. It's been more than a year, and nobody has talked about moving. They live in their cabins on the ship, and they train and eat together and play cards and watch the world beneath them burn. It's a codependency.

She hasn't thought about leaving either, though. It seems too strange an idea, to go live in a city or town somewhere. Meet some new people. Live another life. Age. How do you explain a century of apocalypse? How do you move on? How do you leave the people you have watched die and loved and cherished and saved?

She thinks they are all very tired.

_________

Time passes. The wars and destruction continue. "We can't interfere," Barry says. "They have to be used."  
"How can you say that?" Magnus asks. Barry shrugs, miserable. "We have to keep the Hunger from finding us."

This isn't what Lup, who believed that there is no sacrifice for the greater good, would have wanted.

There's no point to keeping the Hunger from this world if the artifacts are going to destroy it from inside out, Lucretia thinks. It was an imperfect solution to begin with. There isn't any point picking this place to live their lives if they cannot live them.

Lucretia watches the world from her berth on the Starblaster, Fischer bobbing in their tank next to her bed. This world doesn't deserve what they've done to it. They don't deserve what the multiverse has done to them. Fischer flashes bright, and Lucretia's eyes are drawn to them. The beginnings of a plan percolate in her brain.

She could fix things, Lucretia realizes. She could fix everything. Nobody needs to get hurt. She could erase the memories of everyone on this planet. She could take back the relics and shield the planet while the world forgets that the relics exist.

But her family would be worried. They'd probably try to stop her. She wishes she didn't have to hurt them. She's seen what Lup's absence has done to everyone, to her. She misses Lup a lot. If Lucretia were to tell her friends what she's planning, they'd tell her not to do it. If she disappears in the middle of the night to enact her plans, then they'll search for her like they are looking for Lup.

She watches Fischer float. Lucretia could erase their mission from her friends' memories, feed Fischer her journals. No rolling apocalypse, no guilt, no loss. A release from the burden of knowing. It wouldn't be forever, but they could go live their perfect lives while she enacts her plan.

The more she thinks about it, the more the idea appeals to her. Complete anonymity and autonomy, her friends safe from harm, and she can do it, she knows, it'll be like the year she was alone except it won't take as long as that, of co —

A knock on the door startles her out of her thoughts. "Come in!" she calls.

"Hey," Magnus says. "You've been in here all day?"  
Lucretia gestures to the book on her lap. "I got distracted."  
"I know things are kinda rough right now, but don't lock yourself away, 'mmkay?" Magnus says to her.  
"Thanks, Mags." Lucretia says, and thinks about what Magnus's perfect life would be like. Something with carpentry, probably? He deserves the best. They all do.

________

Reliving the mission is...difficult. She rewards herself for each decade of transcription by coming up with plans for where to put her family.

Lucretia daydreams lives for her family. Perfect lives. Where she does not exist and they do not remember each other, but lives that are uncomplicated and happy in their simplicity. Lives that don't involve running from the apocalypse or watching your best friends die in front of you, over and over and over.

She tries to imagine a perfect life for herself and can't think of anything.

That's okay. That's why she's the one doing this.

________

She finishes the journal on a spring day two years after they've arrived in Faerun. It's anticlimatic. Lucretia writes the last line on the last page of the journal and flips through it, thinking a. She think she's covered everything. All the misadventures, anything about the Hunger, the entire existence of the Relics.

There's some extra stuff, too. For instance, she's erased Lup from Taako's memory all the way back into his childhood. She doesn't want him to miss her - she's done the same for Lup, wherever Lup is. They're separated, it would be cruel to make them miss someone who isn't there.

Any memory that would hurt is scrubbed out.

She does not wonder whether she is doing the right thing. It is only for a short time, she reasons. It does not matter if they are mad at her later as long as they are happy and safe.

________

Lucretia picks a day when everyone is at home to feed the memories to Fischer. It'll be easier to keep track of people and move them around that way. Barry and Taako are back from a failed Lup-searching mission, talking over their next steps. Davenport and Merle are playing cards in the living room. Magnus is carving something in his bedroom. In the last week, there have been two natural disasters caused by the Gaia Sash and someone has turned a mountain to diamond using the Philosopher's stone.

She knows that what she is doing is right. She carefully unscrews the top off of Fischer's tank, and lowers the book in gently. Fischer swims toward her, entangling the book in their many arms, blinking happily. It doesn't feel like anything at all, as Fischer gently caresses the pages, disintegrating ink and paper in the water around them. Lucretia, for the first time, thinks about how it will feel for her family not to remember her. She will not cry. It's okay. She's doing this for them. They're going to be safe, and she is going to save the world. All the worlds.

She watches Fischer consume her journal. She tries to blink tears away. They run down her face. The silver binding on the book's spine is slowly flaked away.

The door behind her opens. Lucretia whirls around. Magnus is standing in her doorway, holding something in his hands. He's smiling, until he sees her in front of Fischer's tank, and then he looks confused, and as Fischer consumes the journal, Lucretia watches understanding flash in his mind and then drain away.

"No, no!" he says, rushing forward before stopping and looking confused. He drops the thing in his hands on the floor. It clatters.

"Gods, Magnus, no, you weren't supposed to see this, I'm so sorry, Magnus," she darts over to him, just in time as he staggers. He looks at her face, uncomprehending, rubbing his forehead with his left hand.

"What are you do-" he mumbles, his eyes glazing. Lucretia babbles.

"Magnus, please, this is just for a little bit. I'm going to stop this, what we've done to this world. I'm going to find you a place where you can be happy again, it's just for a little while and then you'll remember, I promise."

"Who are you?" Oh, Lucretia thinks, that hurts. He's stumbling, leaning on her, and she lowers him to the ground, still talking. His eyes track her face blankly.

"I can do this, Magnus, please. Please just lie down, I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself. I love you, Magnus. I love all of you. I'm sorry. It'll be over soon, I promise."

He closes his eyes, unconscious. Lucretia wipes her eyes and sits there next to him for a moment. She picks up the thing he dropped. It's a duck that's dressed like her. She laughs and laughs and tears run down her face, wetting the carved and painted wood. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hey if you wanna be sad about lucretia with me and talk about taz/fandom im on tumblr @[anonymousalchemist](http://anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com/)
> 
> also liner notes: i wanted to explore the possible thought processes the lucretia could have had. and god! i'm so emotional about this. probs gonna write some stuff about her watching her friends surreptitiously.


End file.
